Wien’s Water Bits

In my head, I had big and exciting plans for Vienna. I wanted to do cycle through Wachau Valley while drinking wine as well as take a boat to my next destination – Bratislava. Essentially, the flooding had guaranteed that neither one of these things were going to happen as well anything else I found intriguing unless I wanted to get soaked from head to toe. The forecast was rain for the entire time I was in Vienna and the talk all over town (well between me and the one other person staying at the hostel) was about the floods and its impact on our travels. This left me with me with not a lot of desirable choices to explore the city while it poured cats and dogs. I could hide away in museums day in and day out or rest up in a 5 bed dorm room that I had all to myself but I decided that since this was my first time in Vienna, I was going to brave the elements and get out there.

Taken from my Instagram Account

Sadly, all this talk of the floods had left me slightly flustered so the first thing I did on my big tourist day in the city was leave my camera behind at the hostel. Despite the tourist bus being a bad investment in Vienna on any regular given day, I was advised it might be worthwhile as it would give me the opportunity to explore the city and have shelter arrive every 20 minutes or so. After 10 minutes of trying to walk around the city with my borrowed umbrella blowing away in the wind, I gave up and opted in for the tourist bus. This was neither exciting or in line with what I was looking to do but it gave me the opportunity to explore some of the main destinations in-between the times I spent eating strudel amongst other things in a handful of cafes all throughout Vienna.

Taken from my Instagram account. Unfortunately, the best photos showing the water levels are just in my mind as my iPhone had died at that point of the tour.

When it comes to Vienna on this trip, I felt like nature handed me the short end of the stick. The raised water levels of the Danube River made some things impossible to do while other things were on the not recommended list. The constant rain and my 1 warm outfit in my backpack left things like an Opera performance at the end of day out of reach for me unless I planned to drag my sorry wet self to one despite how uncomfortable it felt. Despite these things, I got a good enough feel for the city to know that it would be worth my while to go back someday in order to explore it the way I had originally intended. Now it’s just a matter of how and when I’ll be able to find the time again…

From my Instagram account – my favourite pic I took of the Opera House